Buckeye, Arizona.
In early January, our hiking club’s weekly hike found us on a steady uphill from the nearby neighborhood known as Verrado through open desert and over a couple of ridges into Skyline Park. This popular park is only a few years old, but it has become very busy especially on winter weekends. In fact, as this is being written, I am only a couple of hours from heading to Skyline Park for a Saturday morning hike. Continue reading
Cave Creek, Arizona.
Over the years, one of my favorite places to hike is the Spur Cross Ranch near the community of Cave Creek. Though it’s about an hour’s drive from our house in Buckeye, we find ourselves hiking there at least a couple of times each year. in wetter years, Cottonwood Creek flows freely through the park and even in dry years, there is always some flow from the spring-fed stream. Continue reading
Waddell, Arizona.
On a warm but cloudy day, we ventured out on our first Arizona hike of the 2018-19 season. In late November, I led a short 3.8 mile hike with our hiking club in Buckeye. It was fun to be back with the group again. In the last couple of years, we’ve added some far more experienced hike leaders than I to our group and I expect the group will have a wider variety of difficulty level and length than we’ve previously provided. Continue reading
Somewhere in Arizona.
The state is a hiker’s dream. In fact, this hiker didn’t even know he was a hiker until he came to Arizona in his retirement years. In that time, I’ve hiked over 1300 miles that I can document in the MapMyWalk application. My first hundred miles or so aren’t in that figure as I had been hiking over a year before using MapMyWalk regularly. Doing the math, I’ve hiked about 250 miles a year, though not all in Arizona. Continue reading
White Tank Mountain Regional Park, Waddell, Arizona.
This week, I was reminded of our hiking club in Arizona in a couple of ways. Yesterday (Saturday, 18 August), I got an email from the folks at MapMyWalk. It was my 5th anniversary of downloading and using the app to help map our hikes. Though I don’t use MapMyWalk for hiking exclusively, the vast majority of miles tracked with the app are in Arizona deserts on hikes, mostly with the Verrado Hiking Club. Among other details, the email pointed out that it’s tracked 1362 miles (2192 km) since I started using the app. Continue reading
Morristown, Arizona.
On those hot summer days, one of the best places to cool off is at Lake Pleasant or one of the other man made lakes created as water holding reservoirs near Phoenix. During the winter, the hiking trails in Lake Pleasant Regional Park present a moderate challenge and their shorter length leaves plenty of day left at the end of a morning hike. Probably my favorite trail is Pipeline Canyon. There is a parking area at each end and modern restroom facilities. The trail is a short two miles (3.2 km) long and has a moderate elevation change. At the end of the two miles, take a break at the nearby benches, grab a drink of water and maybe a snack, then head back to your car in the parking area at your starting point. Continue reading
Waddell, Arizona.
Three years ago, we were hiking the Old Saddle Trail section off the Mule Deer Trail in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park. At a trail intersection, we met Chuck and his horse. He stopped to allow us to cross in front of him. We stopped and visited for a few minutes. I asked if I could take a photo of him and he obliged. Continue reading
